Corel VideoStudio Pro x8

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If you've ever used another video editor then the program's familiar interface will have you feeling at home immediately. Import, preview and trim your media files, add and position them on the 21-track timeline, then drag and drop music, transitions, effects, titles and more. It's all very straightforward.

There's also real depth here. You don't have to spend an age creating a stack of tiny clips from your source movie, for instance; Corel's Multi-Trim allows you to extract what you need by selecting multiple start and end points.

Creating a soundtrack doesn't just have to mean dragging and dropping an MP3. The Scorefitter tool can generate what you need from a bundled library of songs and sounds, automatically adjusting to fit the movie length. You can record your own voice, sync sound with your timeline, there's even an Audio Ducking feature which detects music or narration and automatically lowers video background sound.

There are a stack of powerful tools to explore. You can use freeze frames, create slow motion or time-lapse effects; maybe get creative by using overlays and masks to blend objects in various ways; use motion tracking to follow objects on-screen, perhaps connecting them to graphics or text; and that's before you get to bonus tools like NewBlue FX Video Essentials II, which provides a host of special effects via 100 presets and 10 plugins.

Once you've finished, your work can be exported as a video (AVI, MPEG-2, MPEG-4, QuickTime, WebM, Windows Media Format, HTML5, and - new this time - H.264 format MOV). Alternatively, the integrated disc authoring tools can author DVD, AVCHD or ISO disc images.

There's a lot to explore, but thankfully VideoStudio provides plenty of help, in a range of formats (online, video, PDF manual). Or for simple projects you could use the bundled FastFlick: select a template, insert your media, then save your project or upload it (Facebook, YouTube, Vimeo, Flickr), all in a few minutes.

Please note, there is a more powerful VideoStudio Ultimate X8 with additional content and functionality, but the trial build is Pro X8 only.